Fernando's pony, to
take double at once; then we can go sooner."

"Who was it stole that man's steer?" said Ramona. "Why did you not tell
them? They looked as if they would kill you."

"It was that Mexican that lives in the bottom, Jose Castro. I myself
came on him, cutting the steer up. He said it was his; but I knew very
well, by the way he spoke, he was lying. But why should I tell? They
think only Indians will steal cattle. I can tell them, the Mexicans
steal more."

"I told them there was not an Indian in this village would steal
cattle," said Ramona, indignantly.

"That was not true, Majella," replied Alessandro, sadly. "When they
are very hungry, they will steal a heifer or steer. They lose many
themselves, and they say it is not so much harm to take one when they
can get it. This man Merrill, they say, branded twenty steers for his
own, last spring, when he knew they were Saboba cattle!"

"Why did they not make him give them up?" cried Ramona.

"Did not Majella see to-day why they can do nothing? There is no help
for us, Majella, only to hide; that is all we can do!"

A new terror had entered into Ramona's life; she dared not tell it to
Alessandro; she hardly put it into words in her thoughts. But she was
haunted by the face of the man Jake, as by a vision of evil, and on one
pretext and another she contrived to secure the presence of some one of
the Indian women in her house whenever Alessandro was away. Every day
she saw the man riding past. Once he had galloped up to the open door,
looked in, spoken in a friendly way to her, and ridden on. Ramona's
instinct was right. Jake was merely biding his time. He had made up his
mind to settle in the San Jacinto valley, at least for a few years, and
he wished to have an Indian woman come to live with him and keep his
house. Over in Santa Ysabel, his brother had lived in that way with an
Indian mistress for three years; and when he sold out, and left Santa
Ysabel, he had given the woman a hundred dollars and a little house for
herself and her child. And she was not only satisfied, but held herself,
in consequence of this temporary connection with a white man, much above
her Indian relatives and friends. When an Indian man had wished to marry
her, she had replied scornfully that she would never marry an Indian;
she might marry another white man, but an Indian,--never. Nobody had
held his brother in any less esteem for this connection; it was quite
the way in the